I've been watching too many clever melancholy Merlin vids

[b_hallward]

Merlin is so silly and so light, bright and improbable--I don't mean the show, with its obvious flaws, but the idea within the show--these young careless people who love each other without realizing it, and know so little

Comments

[b_hallward]

the traditional endings from Arthurian myth, *might not happen*. Or at least happen differently.

You make an excellent point, one that I feel massively conflicted about. It would be so lovely to have them find a happier ending (and, god, when I think of Merlin waiting for Arthur to return as centuries slip by I start fumbling around for a fix-it). But whatever twists they put on the basic Arthur cycle, I'm not sure I'd be entirely satisfied with them simply growing old together in a stable peaceful kingdom. Doesn't Camelot have to fail? Can anything so idealized exist as more than a flash, a brief unsustainable florescence, and still be an ideal?

And the series does include Mordred in a fairly ominous way--though of course everything the dragon said we can now take with a grain of salt.

But, on a more basic level, maybe it's like the choice of Achilles, the hero's dilemma: to live a long, contented but more ordinary life or to die young striving for something higher, more glorious. And I love them both so much as heroes. So whether it's more like Achilles dying young at Troy or Beowulf riding out as an old man to battle with dragons, I suppose I'm weirdly attached to Arthur receiving that mortal wound.

In short, there is no pleasing me: I want cathartic tragedy and bickering, sex-filled curtain!fic where everyone ends up more or less happy.

[puckling]

and, god, when I think of Merlin waiting for Arthur to return as centuries slip by I start fumbling around for a fix-it

Well yes, that's a large part of it. Like I really really enjoy watching beloved characters suffer (as is massively evidenced whenever I write something) but at the end everything needs to be ALL RIGHT. Like the situation above is basically UNCOOL.

However, I can see the mental dissonance, re: Camelot. Part of the poignancy of Arthurian stories comes from the fact that we *know* it can't last. This is what Arthurian tradition tells us. Camelot must fall. And sometimes I really love that tension, watching things go well and just waiting for that turning point where it all gets fucked to hell. And despite what I said above, I do think that Merlin's going to give us, or at least the show is foreshadowing that. I mean, not only Mordred, but the whole Lancelot thing? Yeah. They've given us the chemicals, all we need now is to wait for them to go boom. (And with the last few episodes, I am actually seeing Arthur/Gwen, which honestly, I needed in order to believe the Lancelot love triangle and wasn't getting *at all* at the beginning of the season).

I'm thinking the difference in our literary kinks might account for some of our divergences in, well not opinion, but in what we want to happen?

die young striving for something higher, more glorious. And I love them both so much as heroes.

I ADORE the boys as heroes. ADORE ADORE ADORE. seperis and astolat's latest fics made me SO HAPPY because they totally had Arthur and Merlin as heroes, but they were still recognizably the characters from the show. But I think my narrative kink could be basically summed up as "Their epic gay love founds empires/saves the world!!!!!!" which is probably why the Merlin fandom is such a perfect fit for me. I want them to strive for something higher and more glorious, but I REALLY REALLY want them to succeed. A lot. Actually reading about a stable Camelot would be weird, but ending a fic knowing that that Camelot was coming through the general awesomeness of Merlin/Arthur? VERY SATISFYING.

I want cathartic tragedy and bickering, sex-filled curtain!fic where everyone ends up more or less happy.

Have you seen the vid Red? I'm forgetting who it's by, but I think that it captures some of that duality.

Ummmm... I made up for timeliness in length?

[b_hallward]

They've given us the chemicals, all we need now is to wait for them to go boom.

Yes! I love Red, it's an amazing look at Arthur, the burning too bright quality he has but with Merlin saving him in the end, them breaking the surface together. You are so, so right: this is the Best of All Possible Worlds.

And yet the other vid I always think of is Unsteady Ground, the fault lines already forming under their feet, all they now have becoming like a bright reflection floating on the surface of deep dark waters, full of sightless currents and sharp fatal undertows.

But, as a friend always points out when I begin to moan and get all emo!tragic about it, Arthur never dies, dreaming, soft and timelessly, in the paradise beyond the western sea. And Merlin doesn't grow old, whether living through long slow ages of the world or sleeping inside the earth, locked in stone, wandering inside the bright twists and curls of his magic, beyond the reach of time.

They get to be heroes and strive, achieve glorious things and then swallow down failure and ruin to the bitter lees, and they will still someday get a second chance at getting everything right. So, yeah, okay. I'm totally letting my literary kinks show here. *g*

Wherein I ramble and introduce myself, hi!

[popcorn_orgasms]

I really enjoy your commentary. I think the way you described it initially is such a reflection of life. You enter bright and unsure of which direction to go in, but so convinced that you want to do the right thing; so certain your actions will make the world a bit better. But then as we see with Morgana's own realization, the world your parents/predecessors left you is already too tangled to easy decisions. It's hard to say what's good and right and to whom, so eventually you begin to use yourself or something else as your moral barometer (Merlin recognizes the danger of relying solely on his judgment and tries to use Gwen, Morgana weighs the situation in the moment), you take action and those actions take you further away from or closer to the people around you.

I think part of the problem of life Merlin deals with (if we were going to ascribe all this to the show)is that when you're young and untested it is so easy for distinct individuals to cleave together to a common cause. There is still so much about their character that's undefined that they can fit simply into each other--sharing motivation, background, hopeful outcome.

But as we grow and take these actions that define us and mold our thoughts and behaviors and hopes, we realize that even when we act together it is from wildly different places as individuals, bringing not only different gifts but subtly different goals. Whereas in youth it seems this kind of unity can last forever, as they mature they realize the depth of their own loneliness and how their lives reflect that.

There doesn't have to be a rift, but it's fitting that there is. Morgana goes her own way into magic, because she's abandoned to it by everyone around her. Gaius drugs her because he thinks its better than explaining, Merlin doesn't share his own secret with her, Arthur ignores her repeatedly, and Gwen can't truly understand. Morgana starts off, somewhat alone and terrified with and of this power and strange to herself and in learning to master it, the power becomes familiar but it's her character that so drastically changes.

Gwen, who is such a beacon of morality, betrays herself and those who trust her the most, whom she trusts best perhaps?

Merlin, is possibly the greatest wizard of all time, but the only way for him to secure this place and people he loves is to freeze it in a moment before Arthur achieves success. In a moment before he can know it will fall apart. I mean, if Merlin where to look back and find the perfect time, I feel it will be limited to a day--one without beheadings, before Arthur is king, before Gwen is queen, before Morgana leaves. And even then, it would still be imperfect.

I mean, that's what I really love about the myth. Sustained perfection is impossible. Once you achieve success (the zenith of your goals) there are so many fissures and possible reasons to fail. Things come together and fall apart and rebuild upon them. For me this story always seems to say that the beauty of Camelot isn't that it lasted, but that it existed. To have so radically changed a kingdom in so short a life, to achieve one's dreams however far fetched and unreachable.

So with Merlin, the show and fan-product, I'm looking forward to the triumph and the fall.

Re: Wherein I ramble and introduce myself, hi!

[b_hallward]

Hi!

Oh, I agree. A huge part of the appeal of the show for me is that they are all so young, not fully formed, and understand the world so little--and how the lighthearted simplicity of the show shifts to something poignant and surprisingly delicate when set against the larger myth cycle, the brightness of youth and the ironies of old age coexisting.

They are going to make so many mistakes. And, like the collective betrayal of Morgana, not all of them are inevitable.

Sustained perfection is impossible.

At times I wonder if the ideal that Camelot represents is ever actually achieved? Or is it merely something striven for and lost? And certainly none of the characters are ever going to be able to find uncompromised happiness, private desires deferred and constrained by public necessity.